the plodding
manners and steady characters of shop-keepers, instead of the
high-toned conversation of polished society or the homely but innocent
simplicities of a country life--that old ground-work of fiction. The
same may be said of those "Essays on the Condition of the
People,"--"Household Servants,"--the "Old Bailey Experience," and
those equally instructive articles on the "Machinery of Crime in
England, or the Connection between the Thieves and the Flash Houses,"
which all owe their origin to the same cause. It therefore can
scarcely excite surprise that the Common Lodging House and Cadger
should have remained so long without notice, when, if we take but a
little time to reflect, we shall easily perceive that this work of
observation is but just now going on, and that the very period in
which we now live, is what with justice may be called but--the Age of
Inquiry.

The Common Lodging House, as the reader no doubt understands, is a
house of accommodation for all classes--no matter what may be their
appearance or character--only provided that they can procure, when
required, the necessary quantity of coins. In every considerable
village in the kingdom there is a lodging-place called the "Beggars'
House;" and in every town, more or less, according to its size or
population. In London there are hundreds and thousands of houses of
this description, from the poor tenant of a room or cellar, with its
two or three shake-down-beds upon the floor, to the more substantial
landlord with his ten or twenty houses, and two or three hundred beds.
Among these the houseless wanderer may find shelter, from a penny to
three halfpence, twopence, threepence, fourpence, and sixpence a
night, on beds of iron, wood, and straw, or on that more lofty couch a
hammock; and some (that is, the penny-a-night lodger) have often no
softer resting place than the hard floor. This common lodging-house
business is a thriving trade; only small capital is required, for an
old house will do, no matter how the rain beats in, or the wind
whistles through, in a back street or filthy lane, for the more
wretched the neighbourhood, the better; old bedsteads and beds,
clothes of the coarsest description, with a few forms, and a table or
so, for the kitchen, are all that is necessary for the concern. The
front room, or what is usually termed the parlour, is generally fitted
up into a shop, or, when this is not the case, there is always some
accommodating neigh